Was it really so very different I wonder?

I think this is the real argument we've been having all along. A number of posters - not just you & gluey - have said things that boil down to if it's not happening now, then it never did happen, and alternatively if it was happening then, then it still does happen. I don't get it. I mean, I can understand people objecting to nostalgia and romanticism and reactionary dreams of jolly old England, but I don't think you have to be a reactionary romantic in order to say people used to do this and they don't any more.

I like the drum and bass story - of course, there are small-f small-p folk processes going on all over the show, and hopefully always will be. But I do think that the particular folk process which works through the words and music of songs has been pretty much defunct for a few years now, at least in England.